Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC From: REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: What is a deadly Von Neuman probe? Message-ID: <12533@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Wed, 19-Oct-83 01:51:00 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12533 Posted: Wed Oct 19 01:51:00 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 17-Oct-83 22:48:22 EDT Lines: 26 From: Robert Elton Maas Oh, so that's what a "deadly Von Neuman probe" is? Well, I'm not too worried. Generally creatures survive better if they try to use other lifeforms to their advantage than if they destroy all other lifeforms on sight. I rather doubt a dVNp would have much chance of surviving long enough to dominate the Galaxy. I suspect other non-deadly VNps would make better use of the resouces and fill the Galaxy faster. Then when there's no more room to expand and the two VNp races begin competing for the finite Galaxy, the non-deadly VNp race will develop some defense against the dVNp, putting it on par militarily, and the greater ability of the non-deadly VNp to use existing resources will give it the edge in the gallactic war. Regarding a biological race that programs its probes deliberately to destroy all other lifeforms; it's rather easy for a mutation to cause that kind of probe to fail to recognize the race that made it, or for mis-design to cause it to recognize an alien race mistakenly. In the former case, the original race would be exterminated; this likelihood would tend to deter that race from making such a probe in the first place. In the latter case, that alien race would likely be able to kill off the dVNps, ridding the galaxy of them long before we humans came to be (unless by accident the dVNps were created at about the same time we humans came to be; very unlikely).